This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention that is recited in the claims. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Certain abbreviations that may be found in the description and/or in the Figures are herewith defined as follows:    ACK acknowledgement    AWT alternate wireless technology    BE best effort    BTS base transceiver station    CAN-EG content aware network-enabling gateway    CDN content distribution network    CEM customer experience management    CN core network    DL downlink (from base station to user equipment)    DPI deep packet inspection    eNode B evolved Node B (LTE base station)    E-UTRAN evolved UTRAN    eNB evolved Node B (LTE base station)    EPC evolved packet core    GBR guaranteed bit-rate    GGSN gateway GPRS support node    GPRS general packet radio service    GPS global positioning system    GTP GPRS tunneling protocol    HLR home location register    HO handover    HSS home subscriber server    HTML hypertext markup language    HTTP hypertext transfer protocol    IP interne protocol    IP-CAN IP connectivity access network    LTE long term evolution    MAC media access control    MCN mobile network code    MME mobility management entity    MNO mobile network operator    MO media optimizer    Node B (NB) Node B (base station in UTRAN)    NBG NSN browsing gateway    NSN Nokia Siemens Networks    PCEF policy and charging enforcement function    PCRF policy and charging rules function    PDF policy decision function    PDN packet data network    PDN-GW packet data network-gateway    PRB physical resource block    QoE quality of experience    QoS quality of service    RAN radio access network    RNC radio network controller    RSM radio system module    SGSN serving GPRS support node    TCP/IP transmission control protocol/internet protocol    UE user equipment    UL uplink (from UE to base station)    UMTS universal mobile telecommunications system    URL uniform resource locator    UTRAN universal terrestrial radio access network    VLR visitor location register
Utilization of base stations and evolved node Bs (eNBs) is an important metric for driving a number of different customer experience management (CEM) and application optimizations. Prefetching or prefilling of media content may occur while media is being played or rendered on a media presentation device. This prefetching or prefilling may utilize the approximately 40% of physical resource blocks (PRBs) across systems which currently goes to waste and is not deducted from a user's monthly data bucket. The progress of the prefilling process may be displayed on the device in the form of a status bar indicating an amount or portion of buffer content that has been downloaded but not yet displayed. In addition to or in lieu of video prefilling, prefetching of social media objects may be performed. The status bar may provide a relative indication of the amount of prefill and/or prefetching that has been performed by highlighting a section of the status bar that is after or to the right of a moving arrow or cursor which represents the currently rendered portion of the media. The media may include video, audio, social media objects, or any of various combinations thereof.
Prefilling and prefetching benefits the overall user experience when downloading and playing media because the buffered data compensates for momentary drop-outs, network congestion, and coverage gaps. Improved capacity may be provided by allowing prefetching and/or prefilling when there is less loading in the wireless system. Prefilled users can stop prefilling when loading spikes, peaks or increases. With prefilling, media playout can continue even when the user leaves the coverage area of the base station or eNB. Prefilling also provides higher data user rates. Users are able to “fast forward” through media more quickly. Prefilling may increase the feasibility of providing wireless video telephony which is currently banned from cellular networks. In addition, the selection of media object duration, video content, and levels of gaming difficulty may be based upon cell loading. However, prefilling and prefetching may load an evolved packet core (EPC), as well as the eNB associated therewith, with many signaling procedures relative to the number of user bytes being transferred.
If eNB utilization information is delayed, the wireless system may not function efficiently. Prefilling may not sufficiently take into account a current physical resource block (PRB) utilization of a cell/eNB carrying the bearer providing the media signaling which is being prefilled. Further, an explicit indication from a network device such as a base station indicating when the cell becomes under or over loaded may be too slow to enable the full benefits of this prefill mechanism to be utilized. For example, during the time interval when the system becomes less loaded, a controller associated with a prefill signal, such as in a base station or media optimizer, may continue to operate as if the system is still more loaded. Thus, there is a problem in that the controller will miss the opportunity to perform additional prefilling. Similarly, during the time interval when the system becomes more loaded, the controller may continue to operate as if the system is less loaded. In this situation, prefilling video users may consume extra system capacity which otherwise would not be “wasted” on prefilling. Thus, for at least these reasons the benefits of prefilling for the user or the operator will be effectively mitigated. At the same time, from an eNB processing perspective, it is rather expensive for the eNB to generate estimates of the eNB utilization on a short/frequent time scale. Further, these estimates can be calculated or determined only after observations have been conducted over the air, and then after some messaging delay.